A Reluctant Birthday Girl

I have been on Facebook long enough to know the drill. At some point on, or shortly after, your birthday, it is customary to share a post of thanks for all of the birthday wishes and to confirm how awesome the day was, detailed description of said awesomeness is optional. I have done it, and perhaps, you have, as well. But not this year.

It is not that I am not grateful for the birthday greetings and wishes that I received, for I genuinely am, but as I read through them, I felt like an absolute fraud and kept wondering who this girl was that everyone was being so very kind and gracious to with their words and sentiments. With every exhortation to have a wonderful, amazing, awesome, incredible, happy, and every other cheerful superlative day and year, I winced, as I felt like I was letting everyone, myself included, down, for I couldn’t do it then and am wondering how to do it now. In a sea of lovely birthday wishes and remembrances, I was adrift in loneliness and self-pity. I was at a party for one that I didn’t want to attend, and I couldn’t figure out how to make a graceful exit.

I had the best intentions when I woke up to celebrate the day of my birth, but it ended up being a day that I never intended. Almost upon waking, while being greeted by kind messages in the virtual world, in the real world, I was being greeted with uninvited guests of my mind’s own making and my heart’s own loathing. Hurts of the past seamlessly combined with perceived and actual hurts of the present, casting a gloomy pall over my future. When my own coping strategies and words failed me at every turn, I waited for a rescuer that I knew would never come but still hoped for nonetheless. I am still waiting, minus the hoping.

So, I wish I could say that I am basking in a post-birthday blissful glow and regale you with tales of birthday festivities, but that would be prettily disguised lie. As I continue to figure out how to regain my footing from the false start of my birthday, I can only offer the ugly truth, in the hopes that it shall set me free, even ever so briefly. At this moment, I may only be able to see the words that my friends, family, and acquaintances so lovingly shared with me on my birthday, but I hope to soon be able to feel and believe those words, as well.

Sheila, thank you for your kindness. I am not sure that it is always brave, as much as it is risky, to be that honest, but it is just part of who I am. I hope you are in the light, and I also hope to rejoin it soon.

Sometimes birthdays make us feel happy and proud for everything we have achieved.
Sometimes birthdays make us feel so-so.
It is OK to have a so-so birthday feeling.
Nevertheless, I wish you a happy year ahead and so admire your continual striving to be the very best that you can be.